


if i gave you the truth, would you keep it alive?

by quibbler



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 08:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3350399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quibbler/pseuds/quibbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where grief resides, trouble follows. The team discover an 0-8-4 with mysterious properties that force a confrontation between Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if i gave you the truth, would you keep it alive?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuburbanSun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuburbanSun/gifts).



> The prompt: The gang picks up a mysterious 084 that's only effect seems to be making everyone in its presence tell the truth, whether they want to or not, and it stirs things up between Fitz and Simmons.
> 
> I haven't written angst in forever, so I'm sorry for all of this! It just sort of happened. Happy Valentine's Day. ♥

The last thing anyone wants to do is to pick up an 0-8-4 after everything that has happened. But SHIELD is a government organisation rebuilding itself, away from the prying eyes of the public and their watchers, and part of the job description is finding potentially dangerous objects with the implied danger to the lives of their teammates.

Trip's death is a rock pulling her to the depths of the ocean that she had narrowly managed to escape, and she had been so close to drowning already. Jemma watches as her team bands together through grief and falls apart at the seams with new discoveries, cutting through the threadbare fabric they've just started to piece back together.

Skye spends more and more time in isolation, afraid that she'll hurt someone, afraid of what she has become.

May is growing ever more vigilant, protective without saying a word--Jemma finds her not sleeping again, kicking a punching bag into submission at 3am. Coulson's militant side is rearing its head more and more often. Bobbi and Hunter seek relief in each other, and Jemma isn't the only one catching their furtive glances and blatant touches. Mack looks haunted, a man still possessed by the ghost of something lurking in the tunnels.

And then there's Fitz.

He had reached out to pull her toward him, to protect her even when she wanted nothing more than to protect him. She watches as his hands shake on the days after they return, though words come more easily. She tries to help, but it still feels as though they take five steps back for every two steps forward. Perhaps, though, she and Fitz are finally starting to rebuild bridges instead of setting them ablaze and watching them crumble, but the barrier between them is still there.

All Jemma wants is her best friend back.

Best friend is a terrible description, really. She wants her person back. She misses how easily they could finish each others' sentences or how they could stand next to each other, elbows pressing together, like they had no concept of personal space. Now, every movement needs to be deliberate. Jemma avoids touching him in any way--

\--but he had reached for her first. Bobbi's words rattle around in her brain until she finds herself gravitating toward the 0-8-4 now safely on board. It doesn't look like their usual 0-8-4, metallic and alluring and dangerous. In fact, it looks more like a simple igneous rock than anything else.

"Sir, are you sure this is it?" Jemma puts on her goggles regardless and reaches for some gloves. There are too many variables to explore, but if it might be a natural substance, that should limit its range. "It doesn't look quite as menacing as any other 0-8-4 we've found before."

"Never underestimate anything, Simmons." Coulson stops short, frowning, though whether it's at the object itself or what he was going to say is anyone's guess. Jemma isn't quite sure what he was going to say, but instead he stares at the object. "That's odd."

"What is?"

"This might sound like a random question, but what was the last thought you remember having before falling asleep?"

"Fitz, sir." It takes a moment for her to realise what she had said before her cheeks start to flush. "Oh." Her gaze falls toward the ground. "You think it makes people in its immediate presence tell the truth."

Coulson doesn't look surprised. "Keep running tests on it. I might ask other team members to come in to test our theory."

Jemma frowns. "It's not much of a theory, sir. I'm not the best of liars." It's a half-truth, she thinks. She has gotten better, certainly, but the search for the fundamental truth is enough to break what little structure of espionage she has developed.

"Agent Morse might be stopping in, then."

\-----

"All that trouble for a rock?"

Jemma nearly jumps at the sound of Bobbi's voice, but she successfully forces her heart back down toward the vicinity of her chest instead of the inconvenient location of her throat. "Oh, hello, Bobbi! There were reports of strange activity around it, yes. I haven't detected anything too out of the ordinary, although there are definite alien properties about it."

Bobbi uncrosses her arms, approaching the lab table. "Like what?"

The ghost of a smile crosses her face before she replies. "Well, Director Coulson seems to believe it makes people tell the truth."

"That doesn't sound very scientific."

Jemma nods. "Let's try it. When was the last time you were with Lance?"

"Two hours ago." Bobbi tenses. "Ooookay, I did not plan on telling you that." She squints at the 0-8-4. "It's not going to turn me green or anything, right?" Jemma shakes her head and watches as Bobbi reaches for a glove.

"Bobbi, what--"

She picks up the 0-8-4 and strolls out of the lab.

"Oh, _bollocks._ Bobbi, come back with that!"

\-----

"Hey, May, what was the last prank you pulled on Coulson?"

"Place his hand in warm water while he was sleeping."

"... Maybe Coulson was right."

\-----

Jemma trails behind Bobbi--her impromptu experiment is providing some irrefutable results, after all, so she takes notes in the notebook she keeps tucked away in a lab coat pocket. There are no seriously intrusive questions asked, though Jemma wishes she hadn't followed Bobbi into a room that Lance and Mack were occupying. Instead, she swipes the 0-8-4 out of Bobbi's hand before ducking out back to the lab, avoiding the shouting match that inevitably ensued.

She is thankful that nothing was asked of Skye.

The 0-8-4 looks so inconspicuous that Jemma wants to believe that the team is reaching a breaking point. Maybe secrets are a difficult currency to use when you become so attached to the people around you, and Trip's death could certainly be a catalyst.

She shakes her head clear of grief. No one handles it the same way: May becomes more taciturn, Fitz shakes more, Bobbi gets aggressive. Jemma compartmentalises, and science is her escape.

The notes in her book are entered into the computer and she is about to run more tests when she hears footsteps. She looks up from the microscope.

The last person she wants to see right now is Fitz, yet all the coincidences of the universe happened to line up and here he is.

"There's--there's a screaming match. Bobbi and Hunter--"

Jemma nods, the stupid smile she keeps plastering to her face reappearing. "Yes, well, I suppose this is a good place to escape. Less noise, and all that." _I wish you wouldn't, though_. She bites that part back.

He goes to sit down at his chair, tugging at the sleeves of his cardigan. "Anything inter--interesting about the 0-8-4?"

"It makes telling a lie incredibly difficult."

He scoffs slightly, and for a moment, Jemma remembers a time when they were younger and more carefree, laughing about exams at the Boiler Room. It still hurts. "We deal in lies," he says.

"Lies and secrets," she amends, and they share a smile. Her heart stutters. "How is Skye?"

She knows Fitz has been standing guard outside the med pod where Skye is. He shrugs. "May took over. Told me to take--take a break. Skye--she mentioned you."

She raises an eyebrow. "Did she?"

"She made a joke about you taking samples."

It's true that Jemma has been intensely curious as to what happened in the tunnels. She's stayed away to avoid her curiosity rearing its head and making her friend uncomfortable. "I won't do a thing until she's willing. She's not a science experiment." The words have been floating through her thoughts for days now, so saying them comes as less of a surprise than she assumed. "And how are you, Fitz?"

He gives her a look that is all incredulity and she wants to take back her question, wants to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time to bring them both back to a time where there were no caveats to their friendship, no ocean between them or lack of oxygen to limit their words. "Everything was--is harder without you around."

She frowns. "I'm still here, Fitz."

"Yes, but you--you weren't before. I imagined you were, but--you weren't really here."

It takes a few moments before she processes his words, drawing a hundred conclusions within seconds. "You mean you were having hallucinations?" His silence only confirms her suspicions. Her eyes narrow. "And you didn't tell anyone, did you? Fitz, that is exactly what you should have told the doctors or Director Coulson."

"Why? So everyone would treat me like--like I was going to break? They were already treating me differently. Besides, not like any--anyone would have told you." He's standing now, one hand clenched into a fist, pressed into the desk.

Jemma pinches the bridge of her nose, her other hand flying toward her neck. "Fitz, _someone_ would have. Coulson would have told me if he'd known and then I would've demanded to come back." She is tense, ready to spring or break apart and she doesn't know which.

The sullen look on his face is enough to push her toward the breaking side of things. "You never told me why you left."

There are a million reasons why, she thinks, and they all fight for a chance to be the first past her lips. "You were worse when I was around, so I left." There is so much more to be said, really, but she bites her tongue, the words caught in her throat.

"I needed you!" His voice cracks from anger, from disuse, from everything that needs to be said. They've had this discussion once before, but with the 0-8-4 in the room--

\--the 0-8-4.

"Me staying wouldn't have made you better, Fitz. I should have stayed away longer--"

"--no, you shouldn't have--"

"--you needed to get better--"

"--how could you just leave?"

"--I did it because I--"

"Whoa." Jemma nearly jumps a foot in the air and Fitz just manages not to topple over as they both twist toward the entrance to the lab where Bobbi is standing, hands held in front of her. "Apparently, I'm not the only one who needed to talk to someone. I'm just gonna leave now."

She has half a mind to chuck the 0-8-4 out behind Bobbi, but instead she continues staring at the spot where her friend was only moments ago until Fitz clears his throat. "You did it because you _what_ , exactly?"

"Because you're my best friend, Fitz, and I wanted you to get better, even if that was at the expense of myself. I love you because you're my _person_ , and I don't know what that means, what it did mean, or what it could mean, just that seeing you improve makes me smile, even if it's a knife in the gut every time that I can't share that moment with you."

The silence that stretches between them is incredibly vast, like they are two galaxies never meant to collide on their paths, two galaxies that may have collided in the past and now are floating in the aftermath. She feels scattered. It takes another minute, though it feels like eons, before Fitz opens his mouth, searching for words that maybe he's forgotten how to say. "Jemma?"

She heaves a sigh in frustration, trying to ignore the tears that spring to her eyes as she sits down at her chair, looking at her screen and nowhere else. "I'm sorry, Fitz. We don't have to talk about it again."

A minute later, she feels a hand on her shoulder and she nearly jumps out of her skin. She twists in her seat to see Fitz, looking scared but hopeful and it makes her stomach flip. "I--can we have this talk without an 0-8-4 influ--influencing us?"

The resulting hope swells inside her as she nods.


End file.
